Sunday, 31 January 2016

Liked some concepts. The greatest thing Jung did, in my opinion, was to disagree with Freud on the libido theory. From my literature days i liked his concept of collective unconscious. But this book had a new treasure for me. The concept of 'synchronicity'. After so many years i realized what my relationship with her is. It is a good thing that the book gives importance to the women who worked on the same topics at the same time. Most history tend to make it invisible by not mentioning it.

Dr. June Singer, in her definitive exposition Androgyny: The Opposites Within, presents a comparative analysis of Freud's and Jung's theories of human sexuality...

Each of these men were spokesmen for the times and cultures in which they lived. Both Freudian psychoanalysts and Jungian analytic psychologists have often served to promote the ideas of the culture in power at the moment

June Singer also says

Although modern biologists are now aware that we were all female at the beginning, it will probably be a long time before the influence of these discoveries filters down to the level where theologians will be ready to consider an 'Adam-out-of-Eve' version of Genesis

One of Jung's first tests as the head of the psychoanalytic movement involved a brilliant young analyst named Alfred Adler. Adler couldn't go along with Freud's notion that the psychosexual libido was the All-Powerful Force that Freud said it was. In Adler's view, man's most basic force was the drive for power

Jung's concept of Synchronicity

A term coined by Jung to designate the "meaningful coincidence" of events that have no cause-and-effect relationship to each other. Synchronistic phenomena occur, for instance, when a mental event (dream, vision, premonition, etc.) corresponds to external reality (the premonition or dream "comes true") or when similar thoughts or identical dreams occur at the same time in different places or to different people. These "coincidences" cannot be explained by causality; they seem instead to be connected primarily with activated archetypal processes in the unconscious

Sunday, 24 January 2016

When
i was going to make a music video during my graduation days i used to watch the
song made by Avial band for the film Sancharram. I found it beautiful,
thrilling and goosebumpish. If asked why i had no reason. The visuals were the
kind of cinematic i liked even though i did not know what the film was about.
The portions shown in the song and the music and the singing all just made me
want to shoot something. Quickly. It was that inspiring. Yet, i never bothered
to find out where i could get a copy of the film. Till the film found me. I was
trying to organize my hard disk and decide which films to share with the
institute's newly introduced file sharing system when from an unassuming spot
amidst a lot of bollywood and hollywood 'Sancharram with Spanish Subtitles'
beckoned me. Yes, i watched it with inbuilt Spanish subtitles and that is why
you will find it in the screenshots i am going to use here. After watching it
the first word which came to my mind was 'damp'. The purpose of this note is to
find out why i feel that way and what is causing this dampness. How the
director's craft is so suited for her story and why it is way ahead of a lot of
lesbian films which were made after it. Disclaimer:
This is not a film review.

Repetition

When
telling a story in the medium called cinema, repetition comes handy. In most
commercial films you see this employed in a way which i think is boring. For
instance if you have a character which follows a routine most filmmakers show
the actions in fast motion like getting up, brushing, breakfast etc. Let's see
how Ms. Pullappally repeats spaces, actions etc to create lingering,
eye-wetting emotions. The
film begins with an atrocious looking graphics butterfly. Then we are
introduced to the space we see in the picture below. Kiran is there. The space
is established through a crane shot which shows us the altitude, the waterfall,
the depth etc.

Later
in the film we see Laila and Kiran going to the same cliff. They stand there
and look at the beauty of the place. We atonce recognize the spot we saw in the
opening shot of the film. It ascertains the thought that it is a space of much
importance in the narrativeLaila spots a pupa under a
leaf of a plant there and stretches her hand to pluck it. She slips and falls
and Kiran lugs her out of death.

Laila's
kameez is soiled. She needs to change it before her mother sees. Back at home
when she is about to change clothes in front of Kiran she becomes very uneasy
and runs away to her place. We will be back at the place one more time in the
film.

When
Laila runs out of the church in her bridal costume and yells 'Kiran' we cut to
Kiran who is again at the cliff over the waterfall. We now realize this was
where the director had taken us in the opening shots of the film. She turns her
head as though she has heard Laila. And what does she do after that? She tries
to pluck the leaf with pupa and slips just like how Laila did. She climbs back
and we see that she too has soiled her new white kurta in the same place Laila
had soiled her kameez. She lies down in a top angle shot which draws all the
attention to the dirt on the white.

Young
Kiran is shown the ornaments her mother has inherited. Her eyes fixate on a
glass bangle. While the mother is about to start the story behind that bangle
her father calls her and she runs away. This is also withholding information
for we don't get to hear the story right after it is mentioned.

Young Kiran sees her great grandmother's glass bangle

After
she grows up her mother again asks her to choose ornaments from the casket.
Kiran again goes for the glass bangle. We see the same bangle again and it is
imprinted on our mind. It is soon going to be a motif in the text.

Grown up Kiran and her great grandmother's glass bangle.

After
proclaiming their love for each other when Laila says that she had always loved
Kiran, she takes off the bangle from her hand and puts it in Laila's.

After
Rajan tells Laila's mother about their relationship Laila is given a thrashing.
Her mother breaks the bangle. Laila gathers the broken pieces with her hand
still bleeding. She doesn't know what to do. Along with the broken bangle we
immediately think about the broken dream of Kiran's mother who wanted the
legacy to continue through Kiran.

Laila with the broken bangle

In
the first half of the film the director establishes the seating arrangement in
Kiran and Laila's classroom. As the story progresses we hear about couples
eloping, them coming back etc. Once Laila's mother gets to know about their
relationship she is also not let to go to school. The solution that they find
with the help of the vicar is to marry Laila off as quickly as possible. Here
again we see the director show the voids in the classroom with the latest
addition of Laila's absence.

Before

After

Till
the point of time where Kiran and Laila become lovers, till they proclaim their
love at the pond all camera movements are steady and smooth running if there is
movement. The pans, tilts and cranes. Right after the scene at the pond when
Laila is sharing her doubts about what was going on between them we easily
notice that the camera has started breathing or even shaking. Hand-held look is
achieved. I sensed a slight distortion too. Later
in the wedding scene as Laila's head starts reeling looking at the vicar and
others we see the same kind of movement with increased shakes and distortion.

Withholding
InformationGrapesDelaila
and Kiran are now big. The first scene in which they interact after growing old
has Laila giving Kiran a bunch of grapes. After eating it Laila asks Kiran if
she could pierce her ear with a thorn. Kiran agrees half heartedly. It hurts
and bleeds. After Laila leaves Kiran examines herself in the mirror and while
doing it sees something unusual in her mouth. She puts her tongue out and we,
along with her see the violet of the grapes. This information about the fruit
they shared is revealed after some time and that scene attains perfection just
because of this simple and sweet method.

The story of Kiran's great grandmother's bangle is told to us later when Kiran is asked to choose ornaments from the casket of old jewellery. After her mother tells her the story and she realizes that it was a lover's gift to her grandmother Kiran decides to take just that.

Shots and Scenes I LovedKiran's SancharramWhen
young Kiran comes to the tharavadu (ancestral home) her mother tells her
the legacy of her family. How the uppercaste family were all warriors. How she
expected the legacy to be continued through Kiran, her daughter. As young Kiran
explores the house her reflection is seen on the framed photographs of
ancestors on the wall. Camera tilts down and we see young Kiran stepping inside
the house. Her journey or sanchaaram is beginning.

Power
Cut at Laila's HouseThe
scene is highly nuanced and evocative. It is instantly romantic without even a
hint of physicality. The two girls are falling in love, gradually. Kiran seems
to know about it. Laila seems unaware. Still everything is just clear on that
night of rain. Through light, lighting, shadows and shadow puppetry and dance
the filmmaker introduces the girls' feelings for each other. That way it looks
most natural when in the next scene Kiran has a dream about Laila dancing. It
is mysterious, just like how Kiran had described Laila as.

Laila and Kiran dance

Laila
and Kiran are in Love This
scene at the pond where the girls take bath is where they acknowledge each
other's love. This is also the first time in the film where they get physically
intimate. Physical intimacy is not sex for them. We are not shown
explicit scenes of plain sex like in some films as Blue is the Warmest
Colour. Instead it is the coming together of two minds and bodies in love.
They simply merge, the sun reflecting on their faces through the water in the
pond, with poetic camera movements which begin and end in the lovers. The end
note of the film may look a bit contrived where Laila's arched foot beats
against the water but then the camera moves further ahead in water and we have
just about time to register a school of fish in there. Simply beautiful.

Secret
Meeting place The
lovers' arrangement for meeting at night. Kiran paces up and down on the top
floor of her house. Laila signals with a burning lamp from her house. They meet
in the woods. The first time i heard of such a thing was when i read Hound of
Baskervilles. In fact that is one of the few things i remember out of the
story. In Sancharram the rendezvous is lovely. It happens in the
sequence with music which shows us how they loved. Again, it is not about sex.
They spend time together, laugh, read, talk and like in this scene look at the
moon together. This is how the director makes lesbianism normal. It is shown
using all the things 'normal' people do when in 'normal' love. Just look at
them.

Laila
is Forced into MarriageThis
scene is one which i liked because of its politics. After the vicar and another
man who i am assuming to be the sexton/Laila's uncle come home and decide that
the best solution to the 'problem' is to get Laila married off we see her
sitting in a corner of her bed. The sexton/uncle approaches her and sits on her
bed. He places his hand over her cheek and scoffs saying 'Had a lot of
pleasure, didn't you?'. I like it for two reasons. One, a heterosexual male is
shown to intrude into a lesbian space. He is defining their relationship. There
is violence in his movements and action. The second reason is that when he
makes his crude remark we feel disgusted because we, as audience have witnessed
their love already and know that this comment is just obscene. This frame
itself shows the intrusion clearly. We can split it into two halves and see how
the man's hand is intruding into Laila's half of the frame.

Secret
Wish

Wikipedia
told me that Ligy J Pullappally made the film based on her own short film.
I would like to watch that as well. I fell in love with her craft so much
so that i am finding it difficult not to copy her. It's not that this is the
greatest film i have ever watched. In fact towards the end i found it a bit too
melodramatic for my taste. But i cannot but help admire the politics and poetry
of the film. Nobody dies in it. It is a common trend in popular films that
anybody who travels an unconventional like being in an extra marital
relationship (Cocktail), being gay (Mumbai Police, Rithu) etc are killed, made
villain or given a sad ending. Here both the girls find happiness in their own
skies with their own butterflies. Kiran smiles, cuts her hair and goes back to
some place which is definitely not death. Kiran is also seen questioning her
mother's casteism a couple of times. In fact she is who comes out as lesbian
and states that it is her mother's blood running in her of which her mother was
so proud of till then which was making her rebellious. Her rebellion is not
killed. I am
really tempted to make a sequel to this film with the same actors. You two
beautiful actors, please wait till i make some money. Till then happy Sancharram to all.

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